Roberts says his is bigger

The Fund for a Better Waterfront's rendering of what they wanted at Maxwell Place. Mayor David Roberts says the park he delivered is 1 1/2 acres bigger than what FBW wanted.

Mayor David Roberts is unhappy with the claims from the Fund for a Better Waterfront that the park at Maxwell Place could have been even better.

If you look at the rendering to the right - which is FBW's design for the Maxwell Place parks - you'll notice that the area in the lower left is a building. But instead, Roberts says, it's a grass field - the very field where residents and politicians played wiffleball last month. Under the FBW's plan, Roberts says, that area would be a brownstone development, not a grass field.

Here's a rendering of what Roberts says is at Maxwell Place now, including the lawn.

Roberts believes that lawn is part of the area that was once Elysian Fields, the site of the first baseball game played under the rules set down by Alexander Cartwright.

"There was no way I was going to allow anything but grass on the exact site where America's game was first played," he said.

Roberts says the lawn represents a 1-1/2 acre increase over what the FBW asked for.

"There's more parkland under our plan than under their plan. Ours is bigger," he said. "That field would instead be a row of buildings."

In its press release, dated yesterday, the FBW says "the park that was opened with great fanfare yesterday was not the park promised back in 2001."

Concrete curbing was substituted for granite. Most of the expansive natural beach was covered with rip-rap. The number and size of trees was drastically reduced. ... The quality of the children's play equipment represents the low-end, not the high-end. There is a dearth of park benches for people to sit and enjoy the remarkable vista of the Hudson River and New York City skyline. The over-all design shows a lack of imagination and attention to detail.